1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to finding exits in a structure by touch as well as by sight, and more particularly to finding the nearest exit.
2. Description of the Related Art
The most common exit-finding aids are the ubiquitous illuminated overhead EXIT signs that satisfy xc2xa71023.0 of The Building Officials and Code Administrators International, Inc. National Building Code (BOCA), xc2xa74-7 of the National Fire Protection Association, Inc. Fire Prevention Code (NFPA 1), 14 CFR 25.812(b), 46 CFR 112.15-1(d), etc., and the simplified vision-dependent floor plans posted on or near the doors of hotel, motel and dormitory rooms, passenger ship cabins, etc. to satisfy NFPA 1 xc2xa716-2.4.1 and SOLAS II-2/28-1/1.7. While overhead EXIT signs are effective in clear air, they are hardly so when vision is compromised or when they are obscured by smoke, and the simplified floor plans are of doubtful effectiveness not only because they are vision-dependent aids that can also be obscured by smoke, but also because they are not readily interpreted by people unfamiliar with them.
Birch, U.K. Patent Application GB 2 214 681 A; Burkman et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,347,499; Harrison, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,737,764 and 4,794,373; Iwans, U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,994; and Shand, U.S. Pat. No. 4,754,266 attempt to address smoke obscuration of overhead signs with fixed or sequentially illuminated exit-finding aids at eye, hand or floor level, where they are less likely to be obscured by smoke, but are, unfortunately, more likely to suffer accidental or intentional damage. Further, these lower level aids are also both electrically powered and vision-dependent, and like the overhead signs, are ineffective when power supplies fail or vision is compromised. So too is the low-location lighting mandated by 14 CFR 25.812(e) and by II-2, Regulation 28/1.10 of the International Maritime Organization publication SOLAS.
Britt et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,401,050; Davis, Canadian Patent 874554; Honigsbaum, U.S. Pat. No. 5,331,918; Keen et al, U.K. Patent Application GB 2 224154 A; Shriever, U.S. Pat. No. 4,385,586; and Smith et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,027,741 teach exit-finding aids having tactile features that make them effective under all conditions of vision and visibility.
Britt, Davis, and Keen teach guide strips that tactilely indicate direction to an exit, and Keen""s strips have overprinted arrows that serve visually, while Britt""s strips also include a phosphorescent material intended to make them visually effective when lights fail. Davis"" strips, however, have no visual features other than those inherent in their tactile arrangement because they are intended to serve when vision does not.
Honigsbaum teaches a system comprising a repetitive array of touch-and-sight-recognizable directional elements on the seats, tray tables and floors of aircraft passenger cabins to indicate direction to the nearest exit both tactilely and visually, and is the only one of the tactile arrangements mentioned that has alternative touch-and-sight-recognizable marking on main aisle floors that can satisfy 14 CFR 25.812(e)(1), i.e., to xe2x80x9cxe2x80x94visually identify the emergency escape path along the cabin aisle floor to the first exits or pair of exits forward and aftxe2x80x94.xe2x80x9d While both the alternative Honigsbaum arrangement and 14 CFR 25.812(e)(1) address the matter of direction to usable alternatives to unusable exits, neither addresses the plight of a passenger who leaves seat 41D in a Boeing 767-300 and struggles to reach an exit twenty seat rows forward because the aids of 14 CFR 25.812(e)(1) do not tell him the location of the nearest exit, i.e., the exit one seat-row aft.
Smith teaches a directional carpeting having fibers inclined to tactilely indicate direction to an exit and luminous arrow overlays to do so visually.
Shriever teaches arrowhead-shaped wall attachments that not only indicate direction to the nearest exit by touch as well as by sight, but also so indicate the number of doors to that exit by the number of such attachments arranged vertically on the xe2x80x9ctoward exitxe2x80x9d side of a door, and by the number of bumps or dimples on each attachment. While Shriever""s xe2x80x9cnumber of doorsxe2x80x9d feature can be effective where only a few doors are involved, it merely adds to the confusion it is intended to eliminate when that number is large. Worse, Schriever""s teachings not only ignore the possibility that an exit may be unusable by failing to indicate distance and direction to alternative ones; they redirect persons searching for usable alternatives right back to the unusable one!
Although tactile exit-finding aids and the exit-finding systems that use them are effective when systems based upon vision-dependent aids alone are not, those taught by the related art have not been adopted, not only for the reasons mentioned, but also because, excepting the related-art teachings of Honigsbaum extended to buildings and ships, they can only be accessed by abandoning what may be the greater safety of a room or cabin for the more hostile environment of a corridor.
The exit-finding system of the present invention addresses the aforementioned shortcomings of that art.
According to this invention, I have for the first time developed an exit-finding system that uses a family of tactiovisual exit-finding aids to enable occupants of fixed defined occupiable spaces such as rooms or workspaces in buildings, cabins in ships, seats in aircraft cabins, auditoriums, theaters, etc. to know the distance and direction to the nearest exit in each direction by touch as well as by sight; to know so before leaving those spaces; to similarly know the escape paths to each of those exits; to similarly know the distance and direction to alternate exits along the escape path; to similarly confirm arrival at an exit; and to similarly know the distance and direction to alternates to exits that are unusable.
According to this invention, these aids tactiovisually display distance and direction to each nearest exit as symbol-character pair comprising a directional symbol and a number: the symbol indicating direction to an exit by touch as well as by sight; the number similarly indicating distance to that exit in terms of fixed touch-and-sight-recognizable architectural features such as doors along a corridor, seat rows in an aircraft passenger cabin, etc.
According to first preferred aid embodiments of this invention, tactiovisual exit-finding aids for fixed defined spaces such as ship cabins, hotel, motel and dormitory rooms, offices, etc. accessed via corridors and having exits to the left and to the right of a space, the aids are on at least the space side of the doors separating those spaces from those corridors and are horizontally oriented rectangles displaying two horizontally oriented symbol-number pairs, each pair offset from the center of the aid in the direction of the corresponding exit: the pair offset to the left indicating distance and direction to the nearest exit to the left of the aid; the pair offset to the right indicating distance and direction to the nearest exit to the right of that aid.
According to second preferred aid embodiments of this invention, tactiovisual exitfinding aids for spaces such as fixed seats arranged in rows in aircraft passenger cabins, auditoriums, theaters, etc. having exits forward and aft, the aids are on seat parts such as armrests, backs, sitting surfaces, tray tables, etc., and are vertically oriented rectangles displaying two vertically oriented symbol-number pairs, each pair offset from the center of the aid in the direction of the corresponding exit: the pair offset to the upper part of the aid indicating distance and direction to the nearest exit forward of the aid; the pair offset to the lower part of the aid indicating distance and direction to the nearest exit aft of the aid.
According to third preferred aid embodiments of this invention, tactiovisual aids for identifying exits, stairways to exits, etc., the aids are on at least the corridor side of access doors and access openings to those exits, stairways, etc., and are squares the diagonals of which are horizontal and vertical respectively, the squares displaying horizontally oriented symbol-number pairs offset to the horizontal comers of the aid to indicate distance and direction to the nearest alternate exits to the left and to the right of the aid, and vertically oriented symbol-number pairs offset to the vertical comers of the aid to indicate the number of floors up or down to the nearest exit or alternate exit.
According to a fourth preferred aid embodiment of this invention, tactiovisual escape path marking, the aids are floor based arrays of directional symbols that indicate direction to an exit.
The exit-finding aids of this invention are not intended as alternatives to familiar vision-dependent aids such as illuminated EXIT signs; they are intended to complement them by serving effectively under all conditions of vision and visibility; i.e., when vision-dependent aids cannot.
The various features of novelty which characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of the disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages, and specific objectives attained by its use, reference should be had to the drawings and descriptive matter in which there are illustrated and described preferred embodiments of the invention.